Energy & the Environment News and Discussions

weatheriscool
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Russia to suspend gas supplies to Poland
Source: BBC
Russia will stop sending gas to Poland from Wednesday, the Polish state gas company PGNiG has said.

PGNiG said Russian energy firm Gazprom had told it all gas deliveries to the country would be halted from 08:00 CET (07:00 BST).

Gazprom has justified the suspension under new rules announced last month, which mean "unfriendly" countries must pay for gas in roubles.

PGNiG has refused to do this.
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61237519
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Russia cuts off 2 EU nations from its gas in war escalation
Source: AP

By YESICA FISCH and JON GAMBRELL

POKROVSK, Ukraine (AP) — Russia opened a new front in its war in Ukraine on Wednesday, cutting two European Union nations that staunchly back Kyiv off from its gas, a dramatic escalation in the conflict that is increasingly becoming a wider battle with the West.

One day after the United States and other Western allies vowed to speed more and better military supplies to Ukraine, the Kremlin upped the ante, using its most essential export as leverage. European gas prices shot up on the news, which European leaders denounced as “blackmail.”

In a memo, state-controlled Russian giant Gazprom said it was cutting Poland and Bulgaria off from its natural gas because they refused to pay in Russian rubles, as President Vladimir Putin had demanded. The company said it had not received any such payment since the beginning of the month.

The gas cuts do not immediately put the countries into dire trouble since they have worked on getting alternative sources for several years now and the continent is heading into summer, making gas not as essential for households.




Read more: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukrai ... 42ffce649f
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Scientists at the NRL (Naval Research Laboratory), a research facility of the United States Marine Corps and the United States Navy, wirelessly transmitted 1.6 kilowatts of electrical energy over one kilometer. To do this, they converted electricity into microwaves, which were then sent to a receiver in a directed beam. To precisely focus the microwave beam, the researchers used a dish as a transmitting antenna. According to the NRL, this is “the most significant demonstration of power beaming in almost 50 years”.
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
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California 100 percent powered by renewables for first time
https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/en ... 609975002/
Renewable electricity met 100% of California's electricity demand for the first time ever on Saturday, most of it from large amounts of solar power now produced along Interstate 10, an hour east of the Coachella Valley.

While partygoers celebrated in the blazing sunshine at the Stagecoach music festival, energy demand statewide hit 18,672 megawatts at 2:45 p.m., and a whopping 37,172 megawatts were available to meet it. Of that, a whopping 101 percent of the power provided came from renewables, according to a continuous tracker provided by California Independent System Operator, or CAISO, a nonprofit that oversees the state's bulk electric power system and transmission lines.

Two thirds of the 18,000 megawatts needed was provided by solar power loaded into the energy grid — or 12,391 megawatts. The milestone lasted almost 15 minutes before edging back down to about 97 percent renewables.
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Global bird populations steadily declining
https://phys.org/news/2022-05-global-bi ... ining.html
by Cornell University
Staggering declines in bird populations are taking place around the world. So concludes a study from scientists at multiple institutions, published today in the journal Annual Review of Environment and Resources. Loss and degradation of natural habitats and direct overexploitation of many species are cited as the key threats to avian biodiversity. Climate change is identified as an emerging driver of bird population declines.

"We are now witnessing the first signs of a new wave of extinctions of continentally distributed bird species," says lead author Alexander Lees, senior lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom and also a research associate at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. "Avian diversity peaks globally in the tropics and it is there that we also find the highest number of threatened species."

The study says approximately 48% of existing bird species worldwide are known or suspected to be undergoing population declines. Populations are stable for 39% of species. Only 6% are showing increasing population trends, and the status of 7% is still unknown. The study authors reviewed changes in avian biodiversity using data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature's "Red List" to reveal population changes among the world's 11,000 bird species.
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'Killer worm' found in UK as gardeners and farmers warned to 'kill but don't touch'
5 May 2022

Experts have warned Brits to keep an eye out for two new species of killer flatworms that could pose a risk to some native earthworm species as well as the soil ecosystem.

These hammerhead worms only measure about 3cm long. But despite their tiny size, it's thought they could be a danger to British species that gardeners and farmers rely on.

Flatworms can kill common garden insects including snails and earthworms, as scientists warn they could become an invasive species, reports Glasgow Live.

The Mirror has previously reported how the trade in imported plants is already said to be responsible for the spread of more than 10 species of flatworms around the world from their native Asia with one type having been found in France and Italy, the other on an island near Africa, said to threaten biodiversity in gardens and farms, according to scientists.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/k ... source=nba
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Electricity Shortage Warnings Grow Across U.S.
Source: Wall Street Journal

From California to Texas to Indiana, electric-grid operators are warning that power-generating capacity is struggling to keep up with demand, a gap that could lead to rolling blackouts during heat waves or other peak periods as soon as this year.

California’s grid operator said Friday that it anticipates a shortfall in supplies this summer, especially if extreme heat, wildfires or delays in bringing new power sources online exacerbate the constraints. The Midcontinent Independent System Operator, or MISO, which oversees a large regional grid spanning much of the Midwest, said late last month that capacity shortages may force it to take emergency measures to meet summer demand and flagged the risk of outages. In Texas, where a number of power plants lately went offline for maintenance, the grid operator warned of tight conditions during a heat wave expected to last into the next week.

The risk of electricity shortages is rising throughout the U.S. as traditional power plants are being retired more quickly than they can be replaced by renewable energy and battery storage. Power grids are feeling the strain as the U.S. makes a historic transition from conventional power plants fueled by coal and natural gas to cleaner forms of energy such as wind and solar power, and aging nuclear plants are slated for retirement in many parts of the country.
Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/electricit ... r&mod=e2fb
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An Iowa Powerbroker Plans to Make a Windfall from Piping Ethanol Emissions
By Tom Philpott
May-June 2022 Issue
(Mother Jones) For most of his 30-year career, Iowa farmer Dan Wahl never knocked heads with his state’s agribusiness goliaths. He was too busy tending his crops and cattle on 640 acres of land. But then, in September 2021, a subsidiary of a private equity firm called Summit Agricultural Group started mailing packets to farmers in his area, pitching its plan to build a 2,000-mile pipeline through 30 Iowa counties as a way of breathing new life into the state’s troubled ethanol industry. The pipeline, dubbed the Midwest Carbon Express, would slash across Wahl’s farm on its way to grab carbon dioxide generated by 31 corn ethanol plants in five states. It would carry the CO2 to North Dakota, where the gas would be buried underground. By burying ethanol’s carbon waste, the project would make the fuel more climate-friendly, and by bolstering the ethanol trade, it would boost the price of corn, benefiting the state’s farmers, the pitch goes.

Wahl didn’t take the idea seriously at first. But then he heard from some neighbors that Summit was prepared to appeal to the Iowa Utilities Board to seize any land not ceded through voluntary easement. That suddenly sounded to Wahl like a credible threat. After all, Summit’s founder and CEO, Bruce Rastetter, is a heavyweight in Iowa politics with close ties to the state’s past and current governors who have appointed members of that very board.

An agribusiness magnate, Rastetter has deftly leveraged his wealth to gain political influence. His generous campaign donations to and chummy relations with his home state’s GOP power structure inspired Politico to deem him the “real Iowa kingmaker.” Now he’s making what could be his biggest play yet. Summit’s Midwest Carbon Express project would take advantage of federal tax credits meant to mitigate ¬climate change—and it is poised to net him and his investors a massive windfall.
Read more here: https://www.motherjones.com/environment ... rastetter/
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weatheriscool
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New material can 'capture toxic pollutants from air'

by University of Limerick
https://phys.org/news/2022-05-material- ... s-air.html

Researchers at University of Limerick have developed a new material that has the ability to capture toxic chemicals from the air.

The material is capable of capturing trace amounts of benzene, a toxic pollutant, from the air and crucially use less energy than existing materials to do so, according to the researchers.

The sponge-like porous material could revolutionize the search for clean air and have a significant impact in the battle against climate change, the researchers believe.

Professor Michael Zaworotko, Bernal Chair of Crystal Engineering and Science Foundation of Ireland Research Professor at University of Limerick's Bernal Institute, and colleagues developed the new material, with findings reported in Nature Materials.
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